


Mamono Hunter World: Quirklessborne

by Natalman



Category: Monster Girl Encyclopedia, Monster Hunter (Video Games), 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Midoriya Izuku, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, Fem!Everyone, Female Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead, Fluff and Crack, Harems? Harems., Hey would look at that another crazy crossover by me, I'm Not Apologizing, Midoriya Izuku is one of the few men in this story, Monster Girls, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Polyamory, Polyamory - freeform, Quirkless Midoriya Izuku, Surnames what are those?, There is no U.A
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:50:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22304653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natalman/pseuds/Natalman
Summary: Izuku is a Mamono Hunter trying to preserve the stability of the world. Like anyone else in his job field really.The problem is no one he knows wants him to, as most people he knows have quirks, human superpowers and he does not.So in a fit of "why won't you get yourself killed already?" his guild devision chose to send him on a suicide mission to the uncharted continent of Keishi.To say that their attempt to be rid of him did not go as planned is accurate.Inspired by Yesmar1020's work Everyday Heroics with Monster Girls. I highgly recommend you give it a read.
Relationships: Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead & Midoriya Izuku, Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead/Midoriya Izuku, Midoriya Izuku/Everyone, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Comments: 26
Kudos: 201





	1. Tales of Keishi

**Author's Note:**

> Hey I mentioned that I was aiming to make something more light hearted....yeah no, this isn't that.

The longer Izuku stared at his Assigned Mission the more he became acutely suspicious that the Hunters Guild hated his guts.

He wasn’t entirely sure of this but “Chart the incredibly dangerous landmass that we’ve sent entire fleets to on your own,” sounded like guild speak for “Go and die somewhere where we can’t see or hear of it.”

The “on your own” part was not an exaggeration either. No hunter team, no researchers, no cooks, no Handler, not even a palico. Just him and a completely unmanned Guild Ship.

In itself, a journey to “Keishi” was accepted to be a one-way, you are never coming back home, kind of life decision. Doing it all on your lonesome with a ship that is usually meant to carry a minimum of twenty people, was akin to declaring that you were going to stop the moon from crashing into the planet.

Keishi was a landmass several weeks worth of travel away from any other landmass, absolutely surrounded by currents that pulled ships towards it, with more sharp rocks than one could even see from a crows nest and whatever lived in the great waters wasn’t particularly happy with something big and made mostly out of wood going through it either.

It was no secret that Izuku was looked down upon in his hometown, not because he was a bad Hunter. Quite the opposite, he was one of the most prolific Hunters the town had but the town prided itself as being the biggest and best Hunters Guild arm with quirk users at the helm.

That of course was the problem, Izuku was quirkless, he didn’t have any special power of his own.

So yes he was one of the best the town had but he was still treated like one of the worst, sent on the most murderous missions for fun and because they wanted him gone.

Izuku wasn’t particularly thrilled to be sent to his expected demise but there was a set of issues that prevented him from just saying no to this whole thing.

For one, being a Hunter was a life decision, there was no backing out of that job once you had taken it. The second reason was that he was literally on lock down, he would not be given another mission.

Lastly and most pressingly, refusing to take a mission could be interpreted as breaking the Hunters Guild rules and knowing his superiors they would do exactly that. Which needless to say would result in him being hunted down and killed by Guild Knights at the earliest convenience.

After all, the Guild would merely be enforcing one of the “Four Swords of the Guild,'' namely “Life as a Community”, specifically a community of quirk using Hunters. Izuku, being born quirkless, made him literally against their life as a community. Even if he could do nothing about that fact.

So he was out of options. Either set sail to his eventual and painful demise, or stay and get killed. Fantastic set of choices.

* * *

The endless waters that stretched ahead and all around him were as nightmarish and wild as he had been told. It was a miracle that the ship hadn’t capsized, that he hadn’t gone crazy from the near five weeks of complete isolation or just plain died from exhaustion trying to not let this ship sink.

Was he insane for trying to make this work? Probably. Would he rather die trying something impossible than let the Guild say he betrayed his duty? Yes, definitely. They may not value their own creed but he did.

If there was something of value to find on Keishi then he would find it and preserve it for generations to come.

He would not know it, but as he got closer to his destination the storm surrounding his ship got worse and worse. Eventually a wave that almost tore the ship apart caused him to hit his head on the mast behind him, knocking him unconscious.

* * *

Standing on the hills near Keishi’s jagged, maw-like shores was a tall, thin woman with long, scruffy looking hair by the name of Shiko. She was wearing a black, feathery, hooded, cloak made from a Malfestio’s coat. She pulled it closer as the winds picked up.

The night was cold, colder than usual thanks to the storms. She couldn’t sleep, she rarely slept more than an hour at a time normally, the nightmares this place had brought her had not lessened in the years she had been here.

She couldn’t recall how long it had been. Five years? Seven? It felt like an eternity and even with what scarce companions she had made here it felt like death should have taken her long ago.

Focusing on the distant waters she saw it. A crashed vessel, it wasn’t entirely destroyed unlike many others that had come before it. That, however, was not what caught her eye. A body, an intact one at that, laid against the ship’s wheel.

She narrowed her eyes, the chances that the person in question had survived the crash was unlikely, she considered for a few moments to just leave, why get her hopes up? Then she noticed the symbol on the ships broken mast and on its flag.

It was the Hunter Guilds symbol but crossed through with what seemed to be black paint. As much as she hated it, if this person had seen the Guilds’ lies first hand she at least owed them a proper burial, if nothing else.

Terror gripped her heart when she realized that the man she found was very much alive. Unconscious and severely malnourished but alive. His attire was clearly a Hunters uniform, a rather ragged and deteriorated one but one nonetheless.

She also noticed the books, all strewn about near the ships wheel. Perhaps this man had used them to keep himself occupied? She glared around the area, there was no sign of other survivors, or for that matter of anyone. No cloth scraps, no blood, nothing.

Staring at him for a while, she decided to bring him back to their base. If she wanted answers as to what had happened the books and he would have to hold them. A groan escaped her, for a malnourished man he was still rather heavy, an hour long trip back would take two with him in tow.

So be it.

* * *

When Shiko arrived back at the base, well if you could call this rundown collection of cobbled together houses a ‘base’ of any kind, she was almost three hours later than she and everyone else planned.

She put the unconscious hunter on a bed. Well it was supposed to be a bed, if you could call a wooden slab with barely anything to cover the guy a bed. After a while of growling to herself how this place was as much of a wreck as everything else they owned she dropped her cloak on him so he would at least not die from hypothermia.

If her sanity hadn’t already been strained enough she would have questioned the wisdom of taking the ten to twelve books and the six feet tall hunter with her but she didn’t have much to read in the past couple of years so she was willing to suffer and risk his health. Because why not?

Flipping through the pages of the books she could tell that none of them were written by the Hunters Guild. These were the hunters own creations and they were quite intriguing.

Aside from his vast knowledge of weapon craftsmanship and general monster knowledge he also seemed to have a sense of humor. Something she had found most of the guild to lack in all aspects.

She could not help but slightly admire, yet frown upon, his analysis on most female monsters. Yes their slightly more humanoid appearances were alluring, even to her. No, that did not justify making detailed sketches of them and only silly murals of the males!

* * *

After a few more...minutes? Hours? She had lost track of time again. He stirred to life rising from the wooden slab. He proceeded to cough up quite a bit of water and at least one still living fish. It ineffectually flopped about for a few seconds before jumping out of a hole in the wall and into a small stream nearby.

“Kha ...Ow. Where...” he looked around then stared straight at her, turning scarlet enough to be mistaken for a Rathalos. It wasn’t that he was embarrassed for his own condition or being saved but rather that she had apparently decided to take off her wet clothes minus her Malfestio cloak. Which he was currently still holding.

The end result being that he was currently staring at a thin, black haired, soaked and completely naked beauty who was equally staring at him like he was a zombie that had just risen from his grave. The fact that her hair had partially fallen into her face as a result of her hair getting drenched had only amplified the overall look she had.

“A-ahm. Here. It’s yours after all.” he eventually said after regaining his bearings and at least a part of his mental functions. He put the cloak back on her, not wanting to indulge in the sight he had been granted too much for his own good. As much as said sight was something that would remain burned into his mind for quite a long time.

She barely reacted to what he did, quietly eyeing him for a long time even after he had sat back down. He had noticed a moment too late that he wasn’t exactly well dressed either. She had taken the liberty of taking his waterlogged clothes off so as to prevent his demise.

A full minute of silence passed before she eventually spoke up, just before he himself could ask why she was staring at him.

“What brings you here, to this land of death?” her even tone and almost emotionless face clued him in that he had found his destination. Somehow he had managed to reach Keishi.

“The same as everyone else I guess, the Hunters Guild sent me. Though I suspect they wish that I never return.” he answered eventually.

“Your notes.” she said with a hollow tone. “They must truly hate you if they sent you here.” In the moment it took him to blink at that statement she had sat down by his side and draped the cloak over him as well.

He did not need to be a genius to realize that something was wrong with her. Though not that he blamed her, just looking around the area already told him a lot. Everything was rundown and dilapidated, even the roof over their heads had enough holes in it that it barely kept the rain out.

He would not have been surprised if he was the first living human she had seen in years. What he also noticed was that she was having trouble just keeping her eyes open. She looked so tired, tired, not just in the normal sense but tired of everything.

“Uhmm..” he tried to come up with anything to say or ask, it was the middle of the night so looking around the place was out of the question. Before he could say as much of a word, however, she had seemingly fallen asleep against his shoulder.

A bit of an awkward silence took him, it took mere seconds for her to seemingly start twitching slightly, as if whatever she was dreaming of was not pleasant in the slightest. He paused for a bit before carefully laying her down and laying down with her.

This was awkward as it could possibly be, considering their state of undress but there really wasn’t a good option in his eyes. He could have tried and found another place to sleep or even just slept on the floor but he was tired, cold and had the incredibly dark sense of dread of what would happen if he left her by herself.

* * *

When Shiko came to she could hear birds off in the distance. Dawn had broken, wait dawn? As her eyes refocused she noticed both where she was and with who she was. At least she could tell that someone was sleeping next to her and had their arms around her back.

She stared with a mixture of disbelieve and calmness. On one hand she hadn’t had a full night of sleep for years and on the other she honestly could imagine a less pleasant view to wake up to.

Though her calmness was disturbed a bit when she noticed the scars.

Saying that his chest was scarred was a bit of an understatement, she had missed the majority of them thanks to the dark night beforehand. His body looked more like a carpet of scars, she wondered a bit what their stories were. She slightly sprawled her fingers of both her hands against his chest, feeling the texture of his skin.

After she got lost gazing at his body for a bit she eventually just scooted closer, the universe could wait for a few more minutes. Was it selfish of her to expect him to keep her like this? Possibly. She had the feeling he would indulge her.

A few more minutes would pass before he was roused from his sleep, or at least until he stopped pretending to be asleep still. He hadn’t pretended to be asleep because of this situation, no, whatever would give anyone that idea?

The fact that an absolutely gorgeous woman who was currently lacking any and all clothing was pressed against him? Nah he had that all the time...at least when he was asleep.

He tried to not be nervous or let on that this disturbed him greatly but how to go about it wasn’t like you got something like this situation to happen to you everyday and itcertainlywasntlikeheeverimaginedthatsomeonewou-

“uurgh...Shut up and hold me, crazy idiot.”

Great, he had been muttering again, he had thought he had dropped that hab-

“What part of shut up and hold me didn’t you hear?”

He froze for a second and with the kind of care one carries a glass container pulled her closer. She rested her head against his chest.

“...Thank you...”

* * *

When she was finally willing to let go of him they eventually got up and got dressed. Granted Izuku’s hunters uniform was a wrecked mess and Shikos outfit was still a dirty and slightly drenched mess.

Izuku wished that for once in his life the Guilds policies had made some helpful choices for smaller bases but apparently the misery would have to continue for quite a while still.

Walking about the area was quite a miserable experience, he had seen old and destroyed Hunter Guild bases before but this was just disheartening.

No wooden wall was undamaged, not a single building was left without a piece of it missing, the forge area was a completely wrecked to the point that Izuku wondered if it ever worked.

Only the kitchen seemed to function. Even here there was merely a single, elderly Palico by the name of Mewcho. Izuku had heard her name before, she was revered by the Palicos back on the mainland as one of the best Chefs around.

However, he could see the felines age and fatigue, he suspected that Shiko wasn’t the only one barely getting any sleep. Safety was a major problem in this place. It was a wonder that whatever was left of this place wasn’t completely overrun by monsters, big or small.

He had to give Mewcho credit however despite them barely having any supplies she had managed to make some delicious food out of it anyway. It shouldn’t have surprised him, Palicos were experts at what few jobs the Hunters Guild employed them in.

* * *

Their last stop was the exit gate towards a forest clearing that eventually, through long trodden and winding paths, lead to the rest of the mainland of Keishi.

They halted for about a minute before Shiko spoke. “This here. Is Kiji.” Izuku looked where she was gesturing.

It took Izuku a second to realize that there was someone standing there hidden by the brush. A Wyverian, from the looks of it a woman with a very scaly almost fish like head.

“At least that is what we call her. She doesn’t talk, she doesn’t write or understand a word of common either.” Shiko seemed irritated, mostly because Kiji was the only other humanoid companion she had in this wilderness and the two of them could not even communicate even if they tried.

Izuku paused, he knew a bit of wyverian, not a lot and he was really rusty but it was worth a try.

**<”Greetings. Can you understand me?”>** he asked in passable wyverian. It took a moment before Kiji reacted, mostly because she was baffled at what the hell kind of accent that was supposed to be.

She started drawing something into the ground. It was the wyverian word for “yes”.

Well at least that was working out.

**<”Can you help us repair this base? We need every bit of help we can get.”>**

Again his pronunciation for wyverian was a bit of a problem but he could tell that Kiji was at least able to understand what he was saying.

After a bit of thought she nodded and walked off.

“...That was more interaction than I had with her since she first showed up...” Shiko said after a while of staring in slight disbelief.

“My wyverian is pretty bad but hopefully good enough to help.”

“...What did you say to her anyway?”

“I asked her to help us fix this place. If we are going to be stuck here, we might as well make the best of it.”

“...You, truly are mad aren’t you? You have to be. This nightmare has killed more people than you have ever met and you still have hopes to live here?”

They kept walking towards the forest path. He noticed that a band of leather tied to a stone spike was near almost every tree. Grave markers, not actual graves he figured. Keishi truly was a land of death, he could not see how many there were but the forest stretched for a long way away from the base and he could still see bands at the edge of his vision.

“Perhaps, but the Hunter Guild sent me here to die. I want to make this place into something people no longer have to fear, if for no other reason than to spite them.”

“...And if I told you that you will fail like any of us who tried?”

“Then I would attempt it anyway, if I fail to tame this land as well...”

He shrugged

“...I will at least try to make your time here less miserable.”

She stopped dead for a few seconds as kept walking before catching back up to him.

If any thought or feeling of hope had ever slipped into her mind it usually disappeared as fast as it arrived.

For the first time in years, however she felt as if, despite how dark and dreary this place was, despite how many hardships were ahead, that it wasn’t entirely hopeless.

Or perhaps they both had gone mad, that was fine with her too.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Characters introduced, with their occupations, abilities, as well as their vague ages:
> 
> Izuku - Exiled High Ranking Mamono Hunter, human, quirkless, kind of alright with his situation despite how bleak it is. Age: 23~25  
Shiko (Female Shouta Aizawa) - High Ranking Mamono Hunter, human, erasure quirk, Really not having the best decade of her life. Age: 35~40 (uncertain, she stopped counting)  
Kiji (Female Koji Koda) - Wyverian of unknown origin, perhaps Keishi native? Mute, doesn't write common language, good with Mamono languages though. Age: OLD  
Mewcho (Chiyo Shuzenji, Recovery Girl) - Palico Chef, getting to old for this but still doing her job as diligently as ever, Age: 70+ (on her second to last life by her own admission)
> 
> See you next chapter!


	2. Solving Practical Pawblems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our protagonists make their first trip beyond the coast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there, it's a second chapter, hope ya like it.

The trek through the forest surrounding the base was mostly calm, however even as they went down the winding paths Izuku could sense smaller monsters crawling out of the brush, watching them from afar.

There was a strange aspect of monster physiology that could not be particularly explained by any research.

It appeared that the higher evolved monsters along with gaining sentience gained more humanoid aspects to the point where some of them looked more along the line of humans with animal aspects rather than “Monsters” which is why the term “Mamono” was coined to differentiate the two.

“Monster” was the term used for the smaller creatures that appeared more like animals, while “Mamono” referred to their larger, more humanoid relatives.

However it took barely an hour before Izuku noticed that the procession of monsters near them got larger and closer, making his guess that the wall barely kept them out ever more likely. It was at this point that Shiko noticed just how horribly under-equipped Izuku was.

His guild armor being a wrecked mess aside, he wasn’t wearing any hunter weapon aside from a hunter's knife which wasn’t so much a weapon as an “I’m literally on my last leg in this fight” type of item you only used if you had no other option.

“...Your guild arm surely didn’t send you with this little equipment on this journey...” she was almost a bit baffled how he had lived this long. Reading his journals alone had given her an image that his home town was full of jealous fools but this was absurd.

Izuku casually picked up a small stone and loaded it into what could be described as an arm mounted crossbow.

“Slingers” as they were usually called, were standard equipment for modern Mamono Hunters, which is to say for those the guild didn’t treat like dirt. So naturally Izuku’s was a self made version he had crafted from blueprints and based on visual reference from dead Hunters dropped ones.

Before Shiko could ask what he was doing, Izuku offhandedly aimed his slinger to the side and shot the rock, it bounced off of several trees before hitting one of the dog-sized lizards that was ready to pounce on them, which Izuku had identified as a Shamos, impacting it square in the face and knocking it out.

The entire hoard of Shamos stopped dead in their tracks and after some staring retreated.

“It’s easy to forget that most monsters are scavengers. They just let the Mamono lead hunts for them and head after the scraps. Well unless herbivores are involved, then they just try and fight them themselves. They’re more scared of us than we are of them since we look similar to Mamono in many ways.” Izuku said as they kept walking.

Having been alone on hunts since he had started had taught him a few things about monster behavior that wasn’t entirely obvious to hunters that were used to guild standard procedures.

While Shiko had learned her fair share of specific ways to survive over the years of being on Keishi she still had many of the guilds ways internalized, so just knocking a single creature out instead of killing all of the ones that were hostile towards her never came to her mind.

“...You learned a lot more on your own than many hunters twice your age learned through the guild.” she observed.

“I don’t think so. I just learned it all from the ground up, I had to do just about everything by myself. No palico tracker, no handler, no forge master. I wasn’t even allowed to go to the chefs to order food like everyone else.” He said grimly, she herself recalled just how much of a boon all of those things had been in her early years.

As much as she hated the guild now for abandoning them and sending them to their deaths she couldn’t claim that they were unprepared, it was just that what they were prepared for was less terrifying than this place turned out to be. The guild could not have known how bad this place was since no word ever came back.

“If it wasn’t for the kindness of some select individuals I would never had made it this far.” Izuku said, reminiscing.

“The forge master back home, he wasn’t a local, came from a big city further north somewhere, had a quirk that made him an expert at metallurgy, not entirely sure why but he looked at me and said: I can’t sell you items, guilds orders, but no one ever said I can’t teach you how to make them yourself. Come here, we’ll make you a great hunter yet.” Izuku smiled a little.

“Shame that the guild caught wind of that soon enough, a few months later he was gone. Same happened to everyone else who tried to help me.” Izuku shook his head, he needed to focus, now was not the time to make the whole situation even more miserable.

Shiko for her part was now only strengthened in her hate for the guilds practices, it was obvious that personal power was their main concern nowadays instead of upholding the balance of nature as they claimed. Perhaps their hubris had gotten to them too much.

“Enough of that. For now we need to find materials, if we want any chance of survival we need to find a way to reinforce the walls of the base, repair the houses and get Mewcho resources to make food with.” Izuku said finally.

Shiko paused for a long while. “How do you intend to do all of that? There are only two of us out here. Even if we gather resources ourselves the base is way too understaffed to possibly work the way it is supposed to.” She sounded a bit indignant, not that Izuku blamed her, he made it sound simpler than it was. Or as if no one had thought of that before.

They reached a clearing, leading to a large plain of grasslands, Izuku let his eyes wander across the landmass it seemed to be pretty normal, rock fissures near the upper parts of the hills aside.

“A valid question. In your years here have you even seen any Lynians besides the palicos that came along?” Izuku said, squatting down to check several tracks on the ground, some of them were too small to be from average Monsters.

“Some Grimalkyne, yes. Why?” Shiko had a decent idea where he was going with this but it couldn’t be that easy could it?

“Then we might just have a shot.” He rummaged through his coat and handed her one of his books that she did not have time to look over. “...You translated Wyverian and Lynian languages?” she asked slightly baffled by how much this guy was doing on his own.

“Tried to at least. Had to learn everything myself remember? My Lynian is just as bad as my Wyverian but if the book is not completely useless, we might be able to convince a local tribe to join us. Good food and shelter are always a tempting offer and if Mewcho is a competent cook with a resource bare kitchen then imagine what she can cook for us and them if we got her some staff.”

Shiko paused for a while, flipping through the pages of the book. “..This will never work and you’re crazy if you think it will...” she said finally.

“...but being crazy got you here in the first place,” A sigh escaped her, “I don’t know how much I can trust you but you haven’t tried to murder me and I got a full nights worth of sleep thanks to you. Alright, let's try it.” she concluded.

Izuku blinked at the last statement, before nodding slightly. The longer he was around Shiko the more he questioned how this woman managed to keep her sanity for this long.

He made a mental note to try his best to make her happy, mostly because a small part of his mind really wanted to see her smile.

* * *

Tracking the Grimalkyne was far more difficult than it appeared on the outset, while there were plenty of tracks most them were only near entirely flesh and sinew stripped carcasses of smaller monsters. Nothing unusual but it made their trip all the more of a clue hunt.

Izuku spent a lot of time gathering up as much usable material from the carcasses as he could, he had learned that a lot of monster bones were rather useful for armor and weapon creation, if not optimal. Until they had their forge back up and running gathering metal was just dead weight.

“Hm?” Shiko noticed a small bit of purple looking saliva on some of the bones he had found. Obviously something bigger was around but the saliva seemed to have dried out so it had probably left the area to look for food elsewhere.

“Seems a Pukei-Pukei was here a while ago. We better find the Grimalkyne in the area and then try and hunt some food on the way back.” Shiko concluded.

A cold feeling washed over her, they were being watched by something. Looking around however she could not see anything anywhere around them.

As they headed towards a network of caves the tracks lead them to, a Mamono that looked like a mix between a chameleon, a frog and a bird came out of her camouflage in the trees.

“Kererererere…?”

Slowly she crawled down the tree and headed after them, curious of what these creatures were doing in her new territory.

* * *

Izuku hated this, caves were so hard to navigate without scout flies, which of course being horribly under equipped, they did not have. “Scout Flies” incidentally were a type of trained fire fly that the Hunters Guild employed to track monsters and other things and that Hunters had free access to...except him, of course.

With Shiko and the rest also not being able to have them around, due to the whole “this base is a wreck” situation they were in. So now the two of them were wandering around in the dark, hoping not to accidentally stumble into a hole in the floor.

Torches would have been nice but again, see above. So Izuku did the one thing he knew would make at least some light. He scraped the blade of his hunters knife against the stone wall to their left, creating just enough sparks that it made a little light as they walked.

“...You are on a fast track to wreck the only weapon you have if you keep doing that.” Shiko said only slightly exasperated, not that she was better equipped to go into caves by any degree.

She had steered clear of caves for years because what little she had seen in them was usually not pleasant and had the tendency to try and eat her.

“If we had a better way I would use it but we do not. So if I destroy my knife with it so be iiiiiiii-t”

Izuku just barely stopped as he almost stepped off of the ground they were on into a pit that seemed to go several meters down.

To his fortune Shiko had been close enough behind him that she did brush against his back but didn’t accidentally shove him off.

“...Stars above if you die on me I swear...” she muttered so quietly that he couldn’t hear it.

“Looks like the end of the line, there’s no ground past here.” Izuku observed, the slightly glowing edge of his knife just barely showing that indeed a step further the entire floor stopped.

The cave itself seemed to continue quite a bit further but if there was anything past here they couldn't see it.

“...Let’s head back, if we even can find our way.” Shiko grumbled, not that she minded being this close to Izuku right now, even if it was against his back his scent was oddly soothing. She would have to insist that they share a bed again.

Izuku for his part paused for a bit, something was off, he could feel that they were being watched by at least a few eyes from the darkness. He couldn’t see them but he knew they were there.

Izuku was certain this would not turn up anything, even if the Grimalkyne in question were here, his lynian was stars awful and even it wasn’t Grimalkyne had only a similar language not an identical one. He had to try anyway right?

**<Greetings. We are looking for a clan of Lynians. We followed your tracks and came to ask for help.>** He yelled into the darkness.

There was a long pause where Izuku could have sworn he heard the wind howling.

“…There appears to be nothing here.” Shiko said only slightly exasperated, and quite a bit distraught.

She knew he was only trying his damnedest to make this whole thing work out. His optimism that they weren’t dead in the water in a couple of weeks would have been infectious if she hadn’t already given up hope that her days weren’t coming to an end a long time ago.

“...Look I get it. It’s not helping to...” Izuku stopped her and then pointed off in the distance across the hole. She saw it too after a bit of focusing, two small red lights.

Suddenly they heard a grinding sound before out of the darkness a large and heavy metal plate crashed into the floor, someone had built a metal drawbridge in this cave that connected two parts that were otherwise completely separate.

**<”Apologies, your accent was a bit rough to understand. I almost mistook you for a carpet seller.”> ** A voice called from the bridge as several torches were lit and illuminated the bridge area as well the other side of the giant crevice.

There were several grimalkyne standing on the bridge. Grimalkyne incidentally were a type of humanoid feline similarly to Palicos, they were usually between a third to half as tall as the average human was, though they looked a bit wilder and better built than Palicos were, mostly because they hadn’t gotten as used to society as their brethren.

To say that they weren’t expecting a nice greeting by what looked like armored Grimalkyne, who aside from their rather refined looking armor seemed to understand standard Lynian language decently.

This didn’t stop them however as they decided to approach them, though cautiously, because if these armored felines were that much smarter than there brethren there had to be a reason behind that intelligence.

**<”No need to be worried. We’re not going to attack mewou. Too mwuch work.”>** one of the Grimalkyne said bemused at their caution.

**<”We were not expecting to find anyone who would help us.”> ** Izuku said truthfully.

The Grimalkyne paused trying not to laugh. Izuku could tell that his pronunciation had to be absolutely awful.

**<”We need to bring you to our boss. Lady Nezi might be able to understand you better.”>**

“Nezi?” Izuku raised an eyebrow, he knew Lynians well enough that “Nezi” was not a normal name for them, even Grimalkyne did not use a name like that.

With some reluctance they followed them, Shiko constantly looked over her shoulder and seemed genuinely unsettled, she had been around this area for years and she had never even heard of this group of Lynians, it genuinely scared her that they had managed to survive in greater numbers than entire hunter fleets.

Following the Grimalkyne guards further into the cave they soon came to the realization that the stone floor started looking more and more like brick flooring rather than average stone, in fact even the walls started looking like that.

The cave itself expanded exponentially further down, looking more like a large castle interior rather than a cave.

**<”Lady Nezi! We have brought the humans you wanted to speak to!”>** one of the Grimalkyne guards yelled, at first Izuku and Shiko were confused in which direction that yell was aimed or at who specifically.

They noticed someone at the opposing wall, a Grimalkyne...no at least something or someone who looked very similar to one, was hanging in the air, suspended by ropes attached to balloons made of leather. They were holding a small metal device that was seemingly spraying colored paint onto the wall in a fine mist.

Such technology wasn’t entirely unheard of in some of the higher end cities the Hunters guild was part of, however Shiko recalled the last ones she saw being big enough on your back that you needed to stand on a solid block of stone for the weight to not break through the ground.

The person noticed them now and turned to them, again thanks to the distance it was hard to tell what kind of Lynian they were looking at.

With a small sound the balloons slowly deflated as Lady Nezi hovered downwards. She eventually landed and removed the harness and the strange device she had used to paint the wall.

As they approached both Izuku and Shiko became incredibly confused, because the person they were looking at was, well not easy to classify as anything they had ever seen before.

Lady Nezi was about the height and width of the average Grimalkyne, so about tall enough that her ears reached Izuku’s shoulders at best, though like most Grimalkyne standing completely straight was difficult due to their feline feet being sub-optimal for bipedal movement. Visually however she seemed all over the place in regards to species.

She had two sets of ears, one obviously feline and one smaller set that looked round like those of a rodent. Her face looked entirely human, save for her eyes, which had the cat like characteristics, her nose meanwhile looked a bit more rodent like, though still rather human overall.

She looked to be about thirty if Izuku had to make an educated guess on facial structure age though he was guessing at best. He did note her incredibly startling yellow eyes however.

All of this, in Izuku’s experience at least, added up to something he had never seen: a Grimalkyne that through a quirk or some other mutation had essentially become a Lynian Mamono. It was a mixture between incredibly unsettling and fascinating.

“Ah. The new hunter who made such an impression on our scouts just this morning. I must thank you for merely knocking out one of our Shamos steeds. Finding more of them has been a hassle recently due to how many Mamono have been migrating around the continent.” Lady Nezi said in perfectly normal common as if that was the language she was born with.

“Now you are wondering: ‘Just what is she? A feline? A rodent? A Grimalkyne? A Mamono?’,” she made a strangely squeaky laugh before continuing “The answer is yes, to all of those questions. I am as confused about it all as you, believe me the amount of emotional turmoil one gets from being both predator and prey of oneself is hard to do justice in words. Not to worry however it shall not influence our relationship whatsoever.”

It took a second for both Izuku and Shiko to regain their bearings.

Shiko was the first to speak. “Okay, slow down for a second, what kind of relationship are we talking about here? How long have you been scouting out the base we’re from?”

“Oh we have been keeping an eye on that base since it was first built, though I must say that it saddens me that you have thought it necessary to attack so many of my scouts over the years. We were quite willing to help your cause if the hunters present had asked.” Nezi answered with a sly smile that exposed some rodent like front teeth.

Shiko froze at that statement, so if her fellow hunters had actually used some basic logic instead of attacking everything that could be interpreted as ‘hostile’ many of them would not have died.

“As for the relationship in question, why I was referring to the alliance relationship that you came here to establish of course. After all, what other reason could two singular hunters be doing out here, well except for the obviously more...private possibilities.” Nezi giggled at Izuku’s expression and the fact that he had apparently gone scarlet at the implication.

“So you’re willing to help us?” Izuku had finally regained his ability to speak.

“Oh but of course! While our clan may be rather secluded we are always searching for more allies, in a place like Keishi, as your kin have come to call it, any aid is a gift of the stars.”

“Hmph. What’s the catch?” Shiko narrowed her eyes at the rodent-feline woman. This was too easy. Too simple, there had to be something they weren’t told.

Lady Nezi giggled “You are wise to assume that there is one,” she crossed her hands behind her back “seeing as you want us to join you in your endeavors and my already existing allies have no intention of leaving their homes. As such, what I require is rather peculiar, yet simple: A favor of my choosing at a time of my choosing.”

Izuku did not like the glint in her eyes, not one bit. He felt like roast on a serving platter and he did not want to think about what that favor could be.

A small voice in the back of his head said to him that he would find out whatever he liked it not, because they were not going back empty handed.

“Sure. If that’s all I am willing to form this alliance, under two conditions. One, your favor does not involve killing anyone at our base, two it does not involve exiling anyone from it either.” Izuku replied calmly, he could live with a lot of things, Nezi would have to come up with something devastating if she thought he’d back down.

However she merely giggled. “Then it is decided. We will be packing up things here in the next couple of hours, we shall meet you upon the next sunrise at your base. Do inform Mewcho that she will not be worrying about supplies for food any longer.”

She giggled again as the two human hunters became acutely aware that Nezi had effectively revealed to them that she knew exactly who she was dealing with and that anything they had hoped to achieve was merely a piece of a puzzle larger than they were aware.

They thanked the stars that she seemed to be their ally, not their enemy.

* * *

Exiting the cave both of them tried not to break out into a cold sweat. By the time they had reached the cave entrance again it had become late afternoon, somehow being in there had made lose track of time.

“...If you taking that favor forces me into a silly costume I swear you will not have a full nights sleep for the rest of your life...” Shiko growled.

“Oh come on. I agreed to it not you. That aside we got everything we wanted right? We have allies, they’ll be joining us at the base and probably help fix it, I mean just looking at them they’re probably going to make the base a fortress within days.”

Izuku stretched smiling, Shiko could not help but find his enthusiasm very amusing, if a little misplaced.

To Shiko it was clear that Nezi had effectively pulled a sort of political power move. She had managed to make hunters her allies with mere words and a smile, that will certainly give her influence over a lot of Lynians on this continent.

“Besides, we even made good time, the sun’s still up, the Kelbi and Apopnoth are grazing just waiting to be hunted, there’s a Bazelguese dropping glowing scales flying across the fields….”

“...wait wha-”

Suddenly the entire hillside a few meters away from them exploded like a war zone, knocking them back a step.

“Ooooooh Khezu dung.” Izuku said with a grim tone in his voice.

“What is a Bazelguese doing here?” Shiko growled, Izuku could tell she was putting every bit of effort into not charging at the near eight feet tall lizardy lion Mamono that had just landed at the lower end of the hills near the cave.

Bazelguese looked like a mix between giant felines, lizards and metallic rocks. They were covered in strange arrow tip shaped scales that could ignite and explode like bombs. These creatures were notorious to interrupt hunters at their Mamono hunts to become the new target.

This one in particular seemed to have incredibly powerful explosives at its disposal, even for a Bazelguese.

Being Mamono their main interest in humans was, well of the pleasure seeking nature more than anything. They were more interested in humans for their bodies rather than their abilities, as such many of them loved fighting strong hunters both male and female alike.

“Alright, we gotta get back to the base without it noticing us.” Izuku said calmly, trying his damnedest to keep Shiko focused on getting back to the base.

“If she sees us we’re dead. Neither of us is well enough equipped to deal with this.” He continued noticing that she had tightened her grip on the dual blades she had as her weapon of choice, while the blades looked sharp they were way too flimsy to survive explosions.

Shiko kept staring at the Mamono like she was two seconds away from trying to strangle it with her bare hands. “…...Fine….” she eventually strangled out.

Izuku knew this kind of behavior, it was a mixture between an unhealthy desire for revenge and the Hunter Guild teachings, however Shiko seemed to snap out of it and followed him as he made a large half circle at the side of the mountain towards the winding paths they had previously taken.

The Bazelguese Mamono meanwhile was busy munching on some dead Kelbi, completely ignoring them and not even realizing they had been there.

The camouflaged Pukei-Pukei Mamono from earlier however had not missed them, crawling after them ever so stealthily, she had taken an interest and would find out what these creatures were up to.

> Return from Expedition successful!

* * *

When they returned to the base the good news got everyone into high spirits. Especially Mewcho seemed to be glad that she would finally have more people to cook things for.

Night soon fell over the base and the surrounding area. To his surprise Izuku didn’t find Shiko in any of the buildings despite searching for a while.

“….Up here.” he eventually heard her voice call.

Looking up she was on the highest of the buildings, looking down at him.

A bit of climbing later and he joined her on the roof and sitting down next to her.

“Can’t sleep?” Izuku asked innocently.

“...yes...” she eventually replied, resting her head against his shoulder.

Izuku didn’t know when they had come to the silent agreement to just enjoy each others physical presence, however he was in no mood to question it. Having been alone for most of his life had left him missing a lot of physical contact.

Well no, it left him missing a lot of positive physical contact. He had gotten beaten bloody enough in his life to never want to see someones fist coming at him ever again.

“Heh. Looks like its a clear enough night that you can see my birth star.” Izuku chuckled lightly, she looked in the direction he was looking.

There were a lot of stars in that direction but none particularly stood out to her.

“...Any I should be noticing? I see the sapphire star but that one is hard to miss...” she was genuinely curious if he was implying that he was born under the sapphire star of all things, the star of gods.

“Hahah. No, man I wish I had that luck.” he laughed.

“No. It’s that one, see it? You can barely catch it just above Xeno’Jivius.”

He pointed at something that took her awhile to recognize, sure enough there was a star there and unlike other stars its light was an almost perfect green.

Her eyes went wide when she realized that she knew what star that was.

“You were born under the emerald star? Born as a ‘Sign of the end’?” Shiko could not believe the bad luck this man had.

Being born under that star was like being declared an outcast and a bad omen from the day you were born.

“Yeah. Sure was.” he said calmly, he had come to peace with the idea that the universe hated him a long time ago.

“So. I told you mine, tell me yours.” He smiled at her, she paused staring at him.

“….The more I know about you the more I believe that fate is shit...” she said after a while, before pointing at the sky.

“...So, you too huh?” He smiled a bit bemused, what were the chances?

“Why must you ask questions about every small thing instead of the important ones, you crazy idiot...”

“We really need better nicknames for each other.”

“It fits and you don’t get to give me one. Stars you don’t even know my actual name yet.”

“Shame you don’t know mine either.”

“...Shiko...” she eventually said, trying and failing to hide a smile.

“Izuku.” he said calmly, smiling back.

They remained on the roof in silence, Shiko eventually fell asleep with her head on his lap. He didn’t mind much but decided to carry her to their now unofficial-official bed.

Him finding a woman who actually liked him.

Had to be a sign of the end.

* * *

Somewhere, several miles away from the base, placed within a canyon a very large cocoon like egg was left by a Mamono, the dragon like Mamono in question was seemingly made out of space itself.

The cocoon for its part slowly started draining color and with it energy from the surrounding area, glowing ever so softly in the night.

“ ** _~Soon you shall come into this world. To bring about a new world, as it should be. May our ancestors watch over you.~”_ **

With that the dragon Mamono departed into the sky, never to be heard or seen again.

However, she hadn’t been the only one present as another dragon like Mamono with sharp red scales and glowing red eyes approached the canyon area.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes on characters and Mamono introduced in this chapter:  
Grimalkyne - Bipedal lynx like creatures, a close relative to the more domesticated Palico. Usually not seen around humans much.  
Lady Nezi - Altered Grimalkyne of unknown origin, appears to be far, far smarter than a mouse-like cat person might appear.  
???? - Pukei Pukei Mamono, a froggy, lizardy poison secreting Mamono type, not particularly hostile but endlessly curious.  
???? - Bazelguese Mamono, highly agressive flying Mamono known to attack both monsters and humans alike. This one appears to have access to extra strong explosives.


	3. Of times forgotten and futures ahead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We find out a bit of lore and get some world building done

**Respect for nature,**

**Life as a community,**

**Crafting from nature,**

**Prosperity from nature,**

These are the four swords of the Hunters Guild. However the longer Izuku and Shiko had been with the guild they both came to feel as if their approach to this had become corrupted. Curiously this was both correct and not.

The four swords of the Hunter Guild originally associated itself with four stars within the firmament.

**Respect for nature.** The Ruby Star, said to be created from the souls of all those who fell preventing the rampages of elder dragons. The Star of Warriors.

**Life as a community. ** The Sapphire Star, said to come from the souls of those in harmony with all living things. The Star of the Wise.

**Crafting from nature,** The Amber Star, said to be the patron star of those who pushed the world of the living closer to divinity. The Star of Seekers.

**Prosperity from nature,** The Emerald Star, once claimed to be the star of those who would bring forth the best in their allies. The Star of Leaders.

Each of the stars was found only on specific days of the year. As such they would all get their time for those who would worship them. At least that is how it was supposed to work.

However the leadership encountered a snag, a snag shaped like an Elder Mamono. With its appearance the creature tore apart the guilds first and most powerful stronghold within hours.

The original leaders fall changed the guild forever, with the changes the new leaders brought the swords remained intact but forever changed. For not even the meanings of their stars remained the same.

**Respect for nature,** The Ruby Star. Respect nature for it is ours to rule and control. The star of rulers

**Life as a community,** The Sapphire Star. Life in unity with one another, for only together can we crush all that stand in our way. The star of gods.

**Crafting from nature, ** The Amber Star. Forge your works from what nature has granted us, for it is ours to take. The star of lords.

**Prosperity from nature,** The Emerald Star. The star chooses those who will betray our cause, give them no quarter! They seek to bring the end of our prosperity. The star of calamity.

It was also around the time of the event that destroyed the original guild leadership that the firmament was seemingly changed forever. The sapphire star becoming far more prominent and the emerald star being incredibly hard to see unless on certain days.

* * *

He was roused from his sleep like always, the old nightmare haunting him until he returned to the waking world.

No amount of time would make the dream go away.

Empty streets, broken buildings, his mother crying.

It always ended the same way, with the lifeless body of his father staring at him with empty eyes.

Even on Keishi the dream hadn’t left, if anything it had only gotten worse, for reasons he wished to never think of again.

However with Shiko sleeping perfectly content in his arms, he at least felt at ease that it was all still in the past.

Ever since they had started sharing a bed her mood seemed to have improved a bit, he guessed the added hours of sleep had done her a service.

At least someone could sleep better. If anything she made his time awake more pleasant.

* * *

Lady Nezi and her clan hadn’t exaggerated when they claimed to arrive at dawn though what no one expected was that there would be so many of them.

It appeared that Nezi had merely been waiting for someone to ask for her help as she had brought around fifty Grimalkyne of varying jobs and professions with her.

To Nezis surprise the resources available to the base already were quite numerous and a lot of it was recently collected, she was even more impressed to find that Izuku and Shiko had decided to collect anything of value in the surrounding area despite the high risk that the Bazelguese from the day before could hear them.

Izuku credited Shiko with this, she had been rather insistent on the idea of sneaking around the large explosive Mamono to get everything they could carry over the afternoon and evening as well as hunt anything small enough to not get its attention.

While it was still not a lot since they did not have anything like a working cart or similar around they still had amassed quite a few things in the hours between their encounter with the Grimalkyne clan and their return to the base.

Most notably Izuku had procured several peculiar bugs, which turned out to be quite invaluable.

Among them were what Izuku was certain were offspring of the “Scout Flies” that the hunter fleets had no doubt brought here. It would take a while to train them and their offspring to aid them but it was very much in the realm of possibility.

Something else that Izuku had managed to procure were several larger bugs that his books had identified as Kinsects, while none of them very particularly strong yet he had no intention of letting them go to waste.

Shiko meanwhile had mined every deposit of ore that was left near the base and dug up just about every broken piece of equipment she could find that wasn’t supposed to be buried with a body.

She had also tracked around the base to see what kind of Mamono and Monsters were around the area. Which is also how the base came into the knowledge that a Pukei-Pukei was stalking around somewhere, that didn’t surprise Shiko much, the forest was a rather damp and decently warm area, Pukei-Pukeis loved warm and damp places.

Nezis Grimalkynes immediately went to work and improved the base all around, it would take them a while but no one doubted that their new living space was going to end up better than it had started out.

* * *

The clang of clashing weapons rang through a large clearing in the forest hills near base. Izuku and Shiko both had spent the past weeks keeping themselves sharp and improving, after all what was all the hunter training good for if you could not even face another hunter in a one-on-one situation?

Izuku was wielding an Insect Glaive, a staff with a blade on each end. These were used in conjunction with a Kinsect, which thanks to Izuku procuring some had given Izuku the opportunity to return to his favorite weapon.

Insect Glaives had been Izuku's personal weapon ever since he had first joined the hunters academy. He preferred them for various reasons, both sentimental ones and practical ones.

His father had once used Insect Glaives, Izuku recalled seeing an ornamented golden one hanging on one of the walls of their old house on the mainland.

His father had also kept quite an assortment of Kinsects though Izuku had a fondness for the Pseudocaths, a white moth like Kinsect species that with enough nurture could become something akin to a very impressive six winged moth creature that resembled a sun symbol.

On a practical level the Kinsects had become some of his few steady allies on the mainland and he could not help but feel that the little critters were far smarter than people gave them credit for. It helped that his little moth friends tended to be rather cute and sometimes kept as pets instead.

* * *

Shiko for her part had a distinct fondness for Dual Blades, effectively short swords that were used by hunters who believed that the best solution to lacking defense was being too fast to be hit.

As such what Shiko lacked in defense and physical strength she easily made up with frightening speed and quite a superior dodging ability than most hunters who carried heavier weapons.

She had some reasons of her own for this preference, one of them being that her quirk was only a combat quirk insofar that it disabled other people's quirks. It had no offensive capabilities that could do physical harm.

Another personal motivator was that one of her friends back home had once used dual blades which was incidentally how she had received her first set and the idea to use them extensively.

On a more humorous side she just generally enjoyed the rush of speed these things offered when used correctly, weaving around opponents and leaving them trying to figure out how to keep up had given her a certain feeling of empowerment.

* * *

Izuku and Shiko were evenly matched, had been since they first started training. Both were excellent fighters with their respective preferred weapons, that much both had realized about the other.

Shiko had originally believed herself to be in the advantage since she suspected that Izuku's slightly hampered speed would allow her to win out in the long run but to her surprise he was far more formidable than she suspected at first.

The most notable thing that brought her difficult was Izukus control over his Kinsect. Normal hunters sent out Kinsects from their Glaives and used scented projectiles to make them follow commands.

Izuku seemingly did no such thing, instead somehow controlling the Kinsect through whistling. Shiko had the suspicion that he had taught himself how to do these things again due to lack of being granted personal resources.

This made him actually far harder to deal with as the Kinsect seemed to almost act independently from him almost like an ally rather than part of his weapon.

Izuku on his end was taken aback by just how fast and precise Shiko was, every hit that she landed on him made him glad that training equipment was designed to not kill people because even with that she always aimed for the most vulnerable spots without fail.

The look on her face during all of their training was also strangely mesmerizing to him. While he knew she had a quirk related to her eyes he was absolutely certain that it wasn’t supposed to be hypnosis related.

Unfortunately Shiko had him on the ropes this time because of this, well not the ropes, the ground more specifically, with both her training blades at his neck.

“...You’re more distracted than usual today.”

“You say that as if I’m never paying attention.”

“...Your attention span lowers the longer we fight.”

“Funny, we seem to have the opposite issue, you take a fight before you get into the mood.”

She let Izuku get up before turning away, spinning around and trying to hit him immediately.

To her surprise, he blocked.

“Heh. You get feistier when I make you mad. I love that.”

“….that isn’t flattering.”

“Why not? I like a woman who can kick my ass.”

“...stop that.”

“What? Telling you the truth or flirting with you?”

She paused just long enough for him to overpower her and wrestle her to the ground bringing her to the same position he was in a minute ago.

The only difference was that the training staff he used for a glaive was pointed at the middle of her throat instead of being crossed like her swords had been.

“Seriously. I like you. Is there a problem with that?”

He let her get up before repeating her actions from earlier.

She dodged beneath his swing.

“...you realize….”

The moth Kinsect almost hit her but just barely grazed her instead.

“...that I’m almost twice your age right?”

Izuku was not sure how she had just landed on his glaive like that but it only made her more badass.

“I fail to see the issue. We live in a world where tomorrow could be the last day we live.”

He pulled the training glaive back temporarily making her lose balance.

“Besides.”

His next swing hit the blades of her training swords hard enough to stop her counterattack.

“If anything I’m surprised that I fluster you like this. You’re way out of my league.”

“...what?”

“You mean aside from being smart, pretty and capable of kicking my ass you don’t see how I could think that you might be better off with someone more caring than a crazy idiot like me?”

Through the kind of weapon wrangling that only Dual Sword users had access to she somehow managed to throw his glaive straight into the air before again pinning him to the ground.

“...do you have any idea what you’re trying to get yourself into?….”

A small, despicable part of him wanted to say  _ ‘your pants obviously’ _ . He wanted to call this part of himself Minoru. He had no idea who that was but they sounded like an asshole.

“A relationship with the one person I can relate with.”

There was a silence that seemed to last an eternity.

It took Izuku a while to realize that not only were her hands shaking but that she was trying everything in her might to not break down crying.

She dropped the swords and merely dropped her hands to her side, he could see how much the idea of anyone actually trying to like her as more than just a convenient ally broke her inside.

“...stars damn you ...why….”

He put his hand on her right cheek.

“Hey. It’s okay. If you don...”

He didn’t get further before she pressed her lips on his.

They only separated when they heard someone approach.

“I am sorry for interrupting this emotional scene but we have an issue that requires your attention and expertise.”

Lady Nezi and whatever she wanted them to do could not have come at a worse moment. Shiko was back off and a little away from Izuku before he could even so much as blink.

Izuku rose to his feet, he was incredibly irritated but didn’t let it show.

“What is it? Anything happen?”

“I would say so. It appears that a Barroth and a Pukei-Pukei Mamono are having a territorial dispute near the base, they injured several of our hunters in the scuffle. While no one was killed, it is only a matter of time before such a thing occurs.”

Both Izuku and Shiko paused for a moment, so that’s where the Pukei-Pukei that had been stalking the base had run off to.

“...We’ll deal with it..” Shiko grumbled.

“Leave it to us, they won’t cause trouble for long.” Izuku affirmed.

Nezi merely nodded and left them alone for now, she wasn’t surprised at how close the two of them were. Though it would be accurate to say that she was a little envious of Shiko, she did not wish to interfere with the two.

More for pragmatic reasons than anything else, she had little qualms about the idea that Izuku might be interesting to keep as a consort but at this time it was more in her and her clan interest to keep the two hunters happy.

Before Izuku and Shiko left to prepare for the upcoming hunt Izuku pulled her to himself and kissed her.

“….what….”

“Figured you needed to know that I feel the same way.”

She hugged him close, resting her head near his neck for a bit.

“...crazy idiot...”

With that they walked off to prepare, fighting two monsters side by side for the first time was going to be an interesting change of pace for both of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inroduced concepts and weapons:  
Insect Glaive - A staff with blades on either end, used for acrobatic and sweeping attacks, used in conjunction with Kinsects.  
Kinsect - A type insect creature used almost exclusively with Insect Glaives, hunters have access to them, usually controlled by scent.  
Pseudocath - A moth like Kinsect. Favored by hunters who like fluffy companions on hunts. Known to be strangely cute.  
Dual Blades - Prefered weapons of the speedy hunters, Dual Blades enshew defence and attack strength for speed.
> 
> The four stars - Four specifc stars of four distinct colors in the firmament, used originally by Guild to represent their heroes, these days their meaning has changed.  
The four swords - the four creeds of the hunters guild. Have changed in the recent generations and not necessarily for the better.


	4. Rising steam and poisoned marshes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short one this time, something a bit snackier for your reading enjoyment

Preparing for the hunt of their two Mamono targets was mostly done in silence.

Sexual tension and risen heart rates aside the two of them knew that there was an inevitable conflict point which they would have to address first.

Walking out of the forest surrounding the base and towards the hills they could see the two Mamono already, while their territorial dispute hadn’t become an outright fight just yet, the amount of growling, loud roars made the populous of smaller monsters get riled up as well.

A fight was unavoidable, especially now that the two hunters were in the area.

“….I assume that you will insist that we capture them alive. Seeing as you don’t have any records on killing the Mamono and Monsters you’ve encountered on the mainland...”

Izuku wasn’t the smartest or the most emotionally observant individual around but he would have been hard pressed to miss the angry tension in her voice.

“I get that you’re none too pleased about that.”

Shiko could almost hear in it his voice that the concept of actually killing any sentient being without it being absolutely necessary was painful for him. Tough.

“….I will not risk losing everything again. Do not force me to do so….”

Izuku paused slightly.

“A fair question: What actually attacked this base or the other bases the fleets must have made?”

“...Why does it matter?...”

“I merely figured that you wouldn’t be the type to blame someone for someone else’s actions.”

Shiko halted for only a step for continuing onward.

“…Let’s just get this over with...”

Izuku took note that she didn’t refute his claim. If anything this was probably as positive of an answer as he could currently expect from her.

* * *

Mamono territorial disputes were similar to many animal territorial disputes or for that matter Monster territorial disputes.

It was basically creatures trying to claim new homes for themselves and butting heads over it.

The difference however was that Mamono inherently created a bit of pressure among the other creatures present, especially the small carnivorous creatures near them.

To the fortune of hunters however most small Monsters like the ones currently present were equally scared of humans and wyverians.

**<“GRUAAAAK”>**

**<“BROOOOORG”>**

The air pressure of the two Mamono roaring at each other actually made some of the smaller Monsters slide away from the soon to begin fight.

For a human watching a dispute like this was like hearing two people arguing with each other in separate languages and the effect was much the same as doing just that.

To both Izuku’s and Shiko’s misfortune neither of them understood a Pukei-Pukei or a Barroth, though even if they did at this point it would not have helped.

* * *

However the presence of two hunters changed the dynamics somewhat. While the two Mamono were still intent on starting a turf war on each other they noticed the two approaching hunters and decided that the two of them were the bigger threat.

Within seconds the two Mamono had decided to put their issues aside until the two of them were dealt with.

“Always gang up on the newcomers, why don’t you?”

Izuku said drawing his Glaive and with a small whistle making his Kinsect fly next to him, the fluffy Pseudocath immediately drawing the attention of the Pukei-Pukei girl.

Pukei-Pukeis were similar to frogs, most lizards and somewhat of chameleons, though there were other Mamono closer to chameleons.

As such their eyes were rather big comparatively to many other Mamono, leaving them ever curious for small flying things.

Izuku noticed that this one in particular seemed to have oddly long black hair for the average Pukei-Pukei, there was something else that he couldn’t quite place.

The Pukei-Pukei girl was rather interested in catching the Pseudocath more so than dealing with Izuku or Shiko.

Izuku was however not intent on letting her have it, essentially dragging her away from the rest of the confrontation with some well placed whistling and a few jumps with his Glaive.

* * *

“...hmph guess his bug is good for something other than being annoyingly cute...”

Shiko drew her blades, her hostility being immediately picked up by the Barroth girl.

Barroths were elaborately covered in rigid plated hide with a large crown like crest on their heads, even their faces were covered in slightly less rigid scales.

Curiously their noses, which looked slightly flatter than that of humans, were completely closed, instead the nostrils connected to the top of the plated crest on their heads.

Shiko noticed that this Barroth Mamono specifically seemed to be covered in red spikes along the back of her head and down to the middle of her back.

The Barroth Mamono grinned at Shiko like a land shark, punching her knuckles together, Shiko noticed that said knuckles turned slightly darker as she did so.

“...A toughness quirk on a Barroth...great. As if you weren’t going to be hard enough to kill...”

Fortunately while Barroths were incredibly tough and could bash through a lot, what they decidedly weren’t was strategic or fast.

This meant for Shiko that jumping out of the way, slashing at her for a couple of times and repeating that dance made for quite an effective strategy at least until the Barroth got wise of it. Which would take a while, sentient? Yes. Smart? No.

* * *

Izuku meanwhile was having a bit of a struggle, not because he was unfamiliar with dealing with Pukei-Pukei Mamono, he had hunted these gals quite a few times back home.

No the issue was that this specific one appeared to have a mutation quirk that increased the amount of frog-like qualities she had.

This also somehow meant that aside from her already large and wide tongue she could jump long enough distances to make it actually hard to keep away.

“Hmm.” Izuku hummed, he had jumped into the air using his Glaive like a vaulting pole, a favored method to catch a breather for Insect Glaive users.

“You’re a tough one. Fast too. Wonder if Kiji could teach us your language, would make avoiding these fights easier.”

Izuku slid backwards and right into Shiko’s back.

* * *

“….Would you stop admiring the scale covered scenery and just fight her already?” Shiko growled, as much as she wanted to rake Izuku across coals for his odd fascination with Mamono girls she really couldn’t help but also be distracted.

No she wasn’t jealous of a bunch of lizard women or attracted to them, shapely as the two of them were, she wasn’t insane enough to think that Izuku could have anything beyond an amused interest for these creatures.

He was the scholarly type after all, though that made her wonder about the detailed drawings he had in his books, how had he made those? That was…

“A question for later. Dodge.”

Izuku cut her train of thought of. Had she just muttered the same he had? Great she was already…

“Getting my insanity? Thanks, I’m flattered, now DODGE!”

Both of them jumped to the side just in time for both of the Mamono to collide head first, knocking both girls out cold.

“Sentient? Yes.”

“Smart? No.”

Both Izuku and Shiko had said the same thing at the same time.

“...So...now what?”

“Well do you still want to kill them?”

“….Grrrghh….Fine.  _ Fine _ .”

Shiko sounded angry and slightly defeated by the prospect of actually saving these two.

“...I swear to our shared birth star, if  _ any  _ of them so much as put a scratch on the base I’m holding  _ you, not them  _ responsible for it...You and your damned bleeding heart.”

With that she stormed off, leaving him with the two knocked out Mamono.

Izuku sighed. “Sorry gals, it's part of the business.”

He laid down a small device, a shock trap, usually shock traps were made by human hunters but these ones were Grimalkyne handicraft.

A large field of lightning bolts zipped across the ground, it was a usual method of binding monsters temporarily.

With a rather off hand motion Izuku threw four small orbs, tranquilizer bombs on the ground, these would ensure that the Mamono were asleep for quite a while.

“Well let’s get you home and see what Kiji can get you to talk about.”

He placed a small glowing orb in his Slinger and fired it straight up.

A pick up flare, it would take a bit for the Grimalkyne could come and bring them back home.

  
  


* * *

Quest Complete: Rising steam and poisoned marshes

Extra Rewards: Two Mamono Allies (?)

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See ya next chapter


	5. Fire Forged Lovers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our two hunters relieve some stress and two Elder Mamono head for Keishi

It would take Izuku quite a while to get back to the base, as he had to help the Grimalkyne dragging the two sleeping Mamono back to the base.

Of course the fact that the Grimalkyne were half his size meant that he needed to lift the two still deep asleep girls onto the wooden carts mostly himself, as if his libido wasn’t shot enough already.

Mamono didn’t wear clothing and their physiques were just human enough that it was unsettling for him to have to lift a seven foot tall woman covered in hard scale plates but still perfectly naked, on a wooden wheeled cart.

As much as he appreciated the view of two rather huge breasts at the side of his head he could do without the cuts the scales gave him. After spending about half an hour trying and almost failing to get the giant mass of muscles, scales and teeth onto the cart the Barroth girl was carted off slowly towards the base.

* * *

Dealing with the Pukei-Pukei was an ordeal of another nature, she wasn’t nearly as heavy but there were a few problems with Pukei-Pukei girls when humans were involved.

The reason he kept his distance from a lot of Mamono, especially the females, was that many of them either had intoxicating or toxic secretions of some kind. If a Mamono found no male of its own kind it settled for the nearest male of a nearby equally intelligent species. Everyone had needs after all.

The problem was that most Pukei-Pukei had a fascination with humans, since many hunters had an equally strong fascination with them. Being ever curious and ever accommodating creatures they had realized rather quickly that humans either wanted to capture them or kill them.

For Pukei-Pukei’s most things were a game, it wasn’t that they didn’t understand danger it was just that they didn’t see it the same as most creatures did. It was just fun for them.

So in their infinite wisdom they had decided to head for the assured victory of combining what other Mamono did and secreted a substance that was both mildly poisonous and an incredibly strong aphrodisiac.

Having to carry the Pukei-Pukei girl over his back with her head on his head, since she was just large enough to still be annoyingly hard to carry, meant that has positively covered in whatever the secretion actually was, as was his armor and his glaive.

Great. As if he needed to be any more worked up today.

* * *

The base was oddly quiet when Izuku and the Grimalkynes, a decent name for a marching band, arrived back at the entrance.

It didn’t take Izuku long to figure out what had happened, mostly because if the present Grimalkyne hadn’t gotten out of the way of the chaos Shiko had caused the gashes in the ground would have had blood in them.

“Well.” Lady Nezi said as calmly as she could manage. She was a slight bit disheveled looking, mostly because she spent the past two to three hours calming her allies down that the two humans weren’t going to kill them.

“I certainly hope you have a solution and an answer as to what happened there. Because if your friend acts like that once more than I feel my hands are tied with aiding you any further.”

It took Izuku a bit to focus on what Nezi was saying, not because he did not want to but because both the poison and the aphrodisiac were still messing with him.

She wasn’t bad looking for someone who was only near four feet tall, had slightly square teeth and looked about as much of confusion of nature as she obviously felt inside. Being both mouse-like yet cat-like had to be rough on someone who looked undoubtedly at least in part human.

Izuku clutched his head slightly, this was not the time to be taken in by the unnatural nature of their new ally. He needed to focus, first he needed to fix his genuinely pained existence in the short term, which meant an antidote for the poison the Pukei-Pukei girl had secreted.

He excused himself merely saying that he would deal with Shiko and what had happened before the day was over.

Antidotes were fortunately not much more difficult to make these days than they were when he was still on the mainland. It took him about an hour to get the right combination of herbs together.

Well at least he wasn’t feeling like throwing up anymore, he needed to deal with Shiko, the aphrodisiac needless to say would have to wait.

He was not looking forward to this prospect.

_ At. _

_ All. _

She was angry, he could tell, and angering her had been the last thing he had actually meant to happen.

* * *

There were a lot of things Izuku expected to see when he got to the clearing he and Shiko had scouted out a few weeks ago. Arrows embedded everywhere, small cuts in every tree, that sort of thing.

He hadn’t expected Shiko to take an actual longsword to train instead of one of the training ones, cut down a big chunk of the surrounding forest, shouting like a madwoman and being not too different from a very pissed off Mamono.

Just approaching the area told him that she was not in the mood for words or even so much the presence of anything alive near her right now.

Tough.

* * *

As he approached the training area he felt her glare on him, it didn’t matter much.

If you backed down at every gaze, glare or stare you weren’t going to hunt much of anything in your life.

He placed his Insect glaive and his Pseudocath Kinsect in one of the weapon racks, deciding that meeting her on equal ground was only fair.

Well as equal of a ground he could have with a dull training longsword while she had one that was very clearly sharp. So be it then.

With barely a move of his own he already had the training longsword and its sheath slung around his back.

There was a strange silence between them for a while before sparks flew where their swords clashed.

She was faster, he was stronger, which in a fair fight would have equalized their chances. This was far from a fair fight since if she hit him he would be missing part of his head rather fast.

Most hunter weapons were not even remotely made to ever be used on a human, they were also far larger examples of most weapons used against humans. As such you needed a decent amount more strength to even wield them properly and an impact felt like it would shatter your arm on a good day.

So Izuku was not so much on the back foot as on his back heel as she kept running him down with strikes he could barely block and what little he could do to counter her did not even equalize the damage she caused him.

* * *

Usual sword fights, as anyone would tell you, lasted for mere minutes as no amount of strength or stamina could stop you from breaking apart at the seams eventually.

To Izukus horror however he found too late that it wasn’t him giving out but his sword. Training equipment was inherently far more fragile than the real deal, to instill the feeling that it needed to be maintained correctly.

He managed to try and guard one last swing of hers sword as she cleaved straight through the training sword and what he had wisely decided to keep of his armor.

She hadn’t managed to hit him in any vital way but considering the state of mind she was in it really didn’t matter.

He stared a bit at the broken long sword handle, before just dropping it.

They gazed into each others eyes for a while, at least to Izuku it felt like quite a long time.

He wasn’t going to fight her, his back was against the wall, quite literally as he was standing in front of the last tree she hadn’t cut down near the area.

With a crashing sound the long sword Shiko had held was impaled in the tree right next to Izukus ear.

**\- Smut ahead, Small Mights should go to the next line -**

Izuku expected a lot of things, and being roughly shoved against the tree in a make out session was not it.

Unlike Shiko, who despite her isolation had at least some sexual experiences, Izuku was completely new to this, adrenaline and sexual tension be damned.

It did not help that the look in her eyes was a mixture between seething rage and unending desire. If anything it made it harder to think as her fingers got tangled in his hair.

Izuku wasn’t exactly sure what had happened in the following thirty seconds only that he found himself on the ground and on top of her, both of them missing most of their clothes and gazing at each other.

In his mind he was freaking out, but his body had long stopped listening to whatever concerns he had left. Rough kisses and bites however were a language they both understood.

Something primal in him made it almost impossible not to be turned on by her husky moans and the delighted shivers every bite and every kiss sent through her. He could feel her nails claw at his back every time he so much as thought of stopping or back away.

They eventually lost what remained of their clothes and Izuku lost what was left of his sanity along with it. He had seen her mostly naked before but his brain hadn’t really registered just how stunning this raven haired beauty was.

She was curvier than he had expected thanks to her clothing being less then exposing for good reasons. She was also incredibly well toned as well. The closer he looked the more faded scars of varying degrees he could find, she noticed his look and averted her eyes if only for a second.

The smile on his face drove her crazy, how could this guy actually like what he was seeing? Every other lover she had ever had hated her scars.

His lips captured hers again, before he began trailing further down, first her neck, then her collar, then her breasts, his hand nervously grasping her left breast and kneading it.

She growled the lower he got, not because she didn’t enjoy what he was doing, he was inexperienced but that was fine. He just needed to stop being so scared of her.

So what is a rather sexually frustrated huntress to do?

“Gah.” Izuku expected a lot of things to happen especially considering the situation being punched in the head when he looked back up at her face was not one of them.

She tackled him so that he was below her now. “Crazy Idiot. I am not made of glass.”

She decided to show him how it's done. If he needed a teacher for this she would oblige.

“Grrghh. St-aah...gghh..”

The amount of noises Izuku made the lower she went with her teeth and with her mouth made her giddy and incredibly impatient.

She didn’t wait for him to recover enough before his crotch became her target. He wasn’t the biggest she had ever seen but that was less of a problem, he would do nicely. Him being hard as a rock only helped, at least she was doing something right.

“W-Wa….” he didn’t get further before she took his entire length into her mouth, his fingers twisting in an overload of pleasure.

She had no intention of letting him recover his mental capacity for the rest of their time here. Every little movement of her mouth and tongue drove him crazier than before, her black hair falling over her face only increasing this sensation.

His face contorted as he came, Shiko did not bother removing her head from his crotch, drinking his seed with barely any visible reaction on her face, though through the strained breathing and haze like heat the two were experiencing he could see that the look in her eyes had changed to something slightly more blissful.

She pulled away from him, spit still trailing his cock. Before he could recover further however he found his face buried between her legs. “...It's not fair if only you get to enjoy yourself.” she said in a tone that was somewhere between a disappointed mewl and impatience.

She figured that if he could run his mouth for any other reason, he might as well use that tongue of his for something she actually wanted for once.

In hindsight she should have realized that the man who had enough anatomy sketches to fill books with them would be rather well aware of a woman's private parts.

It took all her self control to not start screaming as he ate her out like he had been starving for years. She was also vaguely certain that no tongue in existence should move like that but that was buried beneath almost stabbing his shoulders with her fingernails.

She shuddered as she came, Izuku wasn’t willing to let her think he’d be a disappointing lover to have. The look she gave him was far less hostile now but still unsatisfied.

Well, That wasn’t going to fly. Or stand.

“Waah” Shiko had not expected Izuku to just lift her straight off the ground with his tongue still very much inside of her and with no intention of it leaving.

Izuku kept her lifted off the ground and pushed her against the tree. Continuing his tongues assault on her, he could feel her contorting and trying her best to not show that this was driving her absolutely mad.

Her fingers dug into his shoulders, it felt almost like she’d break his shoulder blades if he kept going. More incentive for him.

She contorted and actively needed to stop herself from screaming by biting her own hand. She shuddered several times, each time releasing a wave on him.

Several seconds passed before she could muster the strength to shove him back slightly.

“Fuuh...are you trying...to drive me crazy?”

She stumbled slightly away from the tree, as much as she was experienced with sexual activities, that was something else.

Izuku chuckled weakly, the taste in his mouth and her scent were intoxicating.

“Well you wanted to be treated differently. Speaking of that...”

She did not like the smirk on his face which only lasted for a fraction of a moment before he tackledher back to the ground.

“..guuh...come on...give me some time to recover you jerk.” She half mockingly, half seductively purred.

“Hmm...or I could just leave you like that.” he again smirked, stars she hated and loved that smirk already.

“Stars...just fuck me already you bastard.” She growled, why did he have to be a tease now of all times.

“As you wish.”

He placed himself at her entrance, she had placed her legs around the back of his waist, he wasn’t getting out of this, not for a while anyway.

She almost screamed just by him entering her, he had made her so sensitive already that just him partially being inside was a feeling she wouldn’t forget and would miss forever.

As much as she wanted to moan or scream he didn’t let up for a second, thrusting into her with a relentless pace that left her almost no air to breath, even when she found reprieve to perhaps moan his lips captured her before should could so much as think of it.

Her reasoning gave out with the next orgasm which hit her far harder than the other times before. She shuddered almost passing out from the ecstasy it caused her. His orgasm hit her even worse, a wave of heat passing over her like a fever of lust, she had trouble keeping herself from losing control.

“Mgguuh.. not yet.” she angrily pulled herself up to him, his cock completely sheathed inside her.

She put her arms around his neck, kissing him deeply.

“Don’t….stop...” she growled.

He wasn’t going to argue with that command.

Their love making continued on for what felt like hours to them, before they finally broke down from the strain. Leaving them sweating and slightly gibbering messes, speaking was rather out of the question for a while.

* * *

“...What are we?”

“Aside from broken, crazy, people who just made love like animals for a long while? I am not sure.”

“...I suppose it’s too late to convince you that you do not want me as a lover...”

“After all of that you really want to argue about that?”

“...You’re a stubborn, crazy, idiot you know that?”

“Yeah but I’m yours.”

“...I am uncertain if that makes it better or worse...”

“Perhaps another round of pleasing can convince the picky lady that her choice of lover is worth it?”

“…You realize that you’ll get me pregnant at this rate right?”

“Possibly. Would be worth it.”

“...For you perhaps, it would be a hassle for me.”

“You’d be a great mother, any child that has you as their mother would probably kill a Rajang just by looking at it.”

“...Okay then. You have two hours to make good on that.”

“Yes. Ma’am.”

* * *

When the two hunters finally returned from the training area the entirety of the Base was waiting, it had turned to night in the meantime.

“Well. If anything I am glad that you have settled your differences.” Nezi squeaked slightly amused.

“Though I highly suggest you two get yourselves cleaned up, as much as knowing you have managed to sort your issues out for now is pleasant, your smell is not.”

Izuku was certain that Shiko was blushing for a second before she took his hand and dragged him off to the nearest river, which the base had built around to make a bathing area.

The two Mamono girls they had captured earlier seemed to notice their scents as well, the Pukei-Pukei Girl eyeing them curiously from afar.

* * *

Far above in the skies of the mainland a red comet is seen, this comet is part of an Elder Mamono species known as Valstrax. Huge, metallic dragon-like creatures that seemed to create strong draconic powers from their wings.

They usually flew too fast to see anything that wasn’t a mountain, crashing through all that got in their way, this specific Valstrax Mamono was headed towards the place humans knew as Keishi, for a feeling of dread had overcome it.

The Everstream, the power that permeated the entirety of the world was changing and change was beginning on Keishi. Whatever was happening, it was not a good sign for all living things.

Unbeknownst to the Valstrax far above the world a lightning bolt was seemingly racing across the endless waters with the same destination. A Kirin Mamono had the same feeling and was headed there as well.

As had many other creatures called Elder Mamono.

The Elder Crossing had begun once more. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On Mamono:  
It is notable that there are male and female Mamono despite the predominant presence of females in this story.  
It's theorized by the Hunters Guild that with their continued interefence on Mamono habitats they have inevatably caused  
a shift in power among Mamono that caused males to remain mostly in incredibly secluded areas with some exceptions.
> 
> ???? - Valtrax Mamono - The Valstrax species aside from being exceedingly rare have only been seeing flying high above sea level  
casually bashing through anything that isn't a mountain these dragon-like mamono tend to be loners but are incredibly powerful and not to be messed with.  
???? - Kirin Mamono - Kirin are usually attributed to creating thunderstorms and in fact tend to bring thunderstorms with them wherever they go.  
They are fast enough to be mistaken for lightning strikes and are at least fast enough to run across water. An undisturbed Kirin will rarely attack humans.
> 
> The Elder Crossing - A mysterious event in which several Elder Mamono head towards various locations across the globe. Keishi appears to be one of their prime locations.  
This occurence is believed to happen around every decade though no one is entirely sure why.


End file.
